I. 


T.HE 


EMANCIPATED  SLAVE 


FACE  TO  FACE 


in  ' 

WITH  HIS 

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OLD  MASTER. 


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THE  MASTERSHIP  AID  ITS  FRUITS : 


THE 

EMANCIPATED  SLAVE 

FACE  TO  FACE 

WITH  HIS  OLD  MASTER. 


A  SUPPLEMENTAL  REPOET  TO 


Hon.  EDWIN  M.  STANTON, 

Secretary  of  War , 

BY  JAMES  McKAYE, 

Special  Commissioner. 


NEW  YORK: 

WM.  C.  BRYANT  &  C0-,  PRINTERS,  41  NASSAU  STREET,  CORNER  OF  LIBERTY. 


1  8  6  4. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


https://archive.org/details/mastershipitsfru00mcka_0 


f/AJCoCKl  if oo 


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THE  EMANCIPATED  SLAVE, 

FACE  TO  FACE 

WITH  HIS  OLD  MASTER. 

(Valley  of  the  Lower  Mississippi.) 


To  tlie  Hon.  Edwin  M.  Stanton, 

Secretary  of  War : 

Of  all  portions  of  the  slave  region  to  which  the  Commission 
have  had  access,  the  valley  of  the  lower  Mississippi  affords  the 
most  interesting  field  for  the  observation  and  study  of  the  slave 
system,  as  well  as  of  the  great  changes  which,  at  the  present 
moment,  slave  society  is  everywhere  undergoing.  Unlike  most 
other  sections  visited  by  the  Commission,  here  are  found  all  the 
elements  of  that  society  still  in  existence  ;  but  in  a  state  of  revo¬ 
lution  and  transformation.  Here,  facing  the  broad  river  on 
either  side,  still  stands  the  great  white  mansion  of  the  planter  ; 
by  its  side,  just  without  its  shadow,  the  long  rows  of  cabins 
called  the  negro  quarters,  and,  a  little  in  the  rear,  the  great 
quadrangular  structure,  usually  of  brick,  known  as  the  sugar- 
house.  In  many  instances  the  old  master  still  occupies  the  man¬ 
sion,  and  the  negroes  their  old  quarters  ;  but  under  circumstances 
and  in  relations  quite  new,  strange,  and  full  of  anxiety  to  both. 

During  a  recent  visit  to  the  neighborhood  of  these  mansions 
and  negro  quarters,  many  important  facts  came  to  light,  and 
many  important  suggestions  occurred,  not  elsewhere  presented. 

In  most  other  sections  visited  by  the  Commission,  slave 
society  had  been  observed  in  a  state  of  total  disruption.  Either 


4 


the  master  or  the  slave,  or  both,  had  become  fugitives.  In  South 
Carolina,  the  masters  had  absconded,  leaving  their  habitations 
and  their  slaves.  In  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  as  well  as  in 
many  localities  in  the  southwest  held  by  our  armies,  the  eman¬ 
cipated  could  only  be  seen  as  fugitives,  and  the  old  masters  not 
at  all.  On  the  contrary  in  such  portions  of  the  valley  of  the 
Lower  Mississippi  as  are  within  our  military  lines,  and  especially 
in  the  river  region  of  Louisiana,  many  of  them  still  stand  face 
to  face  in  the  presence  of  the  great  revolution,  and  of  the  trials 
to  which  it  summons  both. 

Before  entering  further  into  the  considerations  especially  sug¬ 
gested  by  the  state  of  things  here  presented,  it  is  important  to 
advert  to  some  of  the  peculiar  features  of  the  slave  system,  as  it 
existed  in  this  part  of  the  country. 

In  the  first  place,  the  origin  and  character  of  the  first  settlers 
of  Louisiana  and  the  Lower  Mississippi  had  an  important  bear¬ 
ing  in  modifying  many  of  its  features.  These  settlers  were  for 
the  most  part,  of  French,  Spanish,  and  Portuguese  origin,  or  of 
what  has  been  called  the  Latin  Pace,  and  it  is  said  that  the 
people  of  this  race  do  by  no  means  entertain  the  same  rooted 
antipathies,  and  low  consideration  of  the  black  race,  as  are  gen¬ 
erally  ascribed  to  the  races  with  a  shade  whiter  skin. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  there  is 
found  here  a  much  more  general  admixture  of  the  black  and 
white  races  than  prevails  elsewhere,  even  in  the  slave  breeding 
States.  And  all  the  evidence  goes  to  show  that  there  existed  in 
this  region,  especially  in  the  earlier  days  of  its  settlement,  a 
much  greater  social  ecpiality  between  the  two  races.  No  such 
utter  repudiation  of  the  manhood  of  the  negro  race,  existed  here 
as  constituted  the  basis  of  the  slave  system  in  the  islands  and 
coasts  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia.  Hence,  although  the 
amount  of  labor  imposed  upon  the  slave  was  often  greater,  and 
the  system  of  punishments  as  cruel,  yet  their  ordinary  and 
habitual  condition  was  better,  and  their  daily  life  on  a  higher 
scale.  They  were  not  so  rigorously  forbidden  the  use  of  a  family 
name.  Their  habitations  were  much  more  like  those  of  other 
human  beings.  Usually  their  cabins  contained  not  less  than 


5 


two  rooms,  and  often  four.  They  were  furnished  with  some  sort 
of  beds  and  bedding,  and  in  their  lodging  those  who  considered 
themselves  man  and  wife  were  separated  from  the  single ;  the 
young,  also,  of  different  sexes  slept  in  separate  apartments ;  they 
did  not  usually  eat  at  a  family  table,  but  they  had  dealt  out  to 
them,  generally  sufficiently  cooked  rations,  which  they  might 
eat  as  they  chose — the  cooking  being  done  for  the  whole  force 
by  regular  details.  On  the  other  hand,  “  the  hours  of  labor  on 
the  sugar  plantations  were  from  fifteen  to  eighteen  per  day,  and 
at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  a  greater  part  of  the  night  was 
also  occupied  with  labor.  The  hour  of  beginning  work  in  the 
morning  was  from  3  to  4  o’clock.  The  overseer  was  expected 
to  produce  a  certain  crop  with  a  given  number  of  hands,  and  all 
were  obliged  to  obey  him  in  preference  to  the  master.  He  was 
generally  much  more  cruel  than  the  master.  Kind-hearted 
masters  sometimes  select  cruel  overseers.” 

I  quote  above  from  the  testimony  of  Mr.  J.  B.  Boudanez,  a 
free  mulatto  creole  of  Hew  Orleans,  a  man  of  great  intelligence 
and  probity,  who  had  been  employed  as  an  engineer  and  me¬ 
chanic  upon  many  of  the  sugar  plantations  in  the  region  of 
country  under  consideration.  Ho  man  could  have  had  a  more 
thorough  acquaintance  with  plantation  life  than  he,  and  no 
man  in  the  city  of  his  residence  bears  a  higher  reputation  for 
truth  and  sobriety. 

He  says,  further,  “  that  upon  some  plantations  the  women 
were  worked  as  hard  as  the  men,  and  in  some  instances  were 
kept  at  labor  in  every  stage  of  pregnancy,  even  up  to  the  mo¬ 
ment  of  delivery.  Sometimes  they  were  sent  into  the  field  one 
week  after  confinement ;  but  ordinarily  they  w^ere  given  one 
month  in  which  to  recover.  Mothers  were  usually  permitted  to 
nurse  their  children  for  a  half  hour  three  times  a  day  for  the 
space  of  three  months.” 

Another  witness,  Dr.  E.  C.  Hyde,  an  old  physician  who  had 
lived  and  practiced  more  than  thirty  years  among  the  planters 
of  Hortli  and  South  Carolina  and  in  the  Valley  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi,  upon  his  examination  declared,  “  that  the  slave  women 
were  forced  to  labor  from  pregnancy  to  maternity.  I  have 
known  of  births  between  the  cotton  rows;  they  were  compelled 
to  hoe  out  their  row,  and  then  given  an  hour  to  recover.” 


6 


u  Many  planters  on  the  Mississippi  do  not  wish  to  raise  negro 
children  ;  they  would  rather  they  would  die  than  live — they  do 
not  think  it  profitable.5’ 

“  As  to  chastity,55  says  Mr.  Roudanez,  “  no  such  thing  was 
known  on  the  plantations.  In  the  first  place,  the  overseers  had 
the  run  of  all  the  field  women,  and  if  one  of  them  refused,  an 
occasion  was  very  soon  found  for  subjecting  her  to  a  severe  pun¬ 
ishment.'5  a  I  have  known 55  savs  another  reliable  witness, 
u  women  to  be  severely  whipped  for  not  coming  to  the  quarters 
of  the  overseer  or  master  for  the  purposes  of  prostitution,  when 
ordered  so  to  do.5'  “  The  old  masters  usually  made  their  selec¬ 

tions  from  the  house  servants  and  the  young  masters  generally 
preferred  for  their  concubines  their  half  sisters.  It  was  the  com¬ 
mon  custom.  They  were  usually  taken  at  the  age  of  thirteen  or 
fourteen.  I  have  known  girls  to  be  mothers  at  that  age.  This 
was  especially  true  of  French  creoles.55  “  Their  own  offspring,55 
says  Dr.  Hyde,  “  were  treated  as  slaves  ;  they  were  frequently 
subjected  to  ferocious  treatment,  and  sold,  to  put  them  out  of 
their  sight.55  “  The  practice  of  indiscriminate  sexual  inter¬ 
course,55  continues  Mr.  Roudanez,  “  was  so  universal  that  a  chaste 
colored  girl  at  the  age  of  seventeen  was  almost  unknown.'5 
“  The  planters’  habit  of  cohabitation  with  their  slave  women  was 
a  source  of  great  suffering  to  these  women.  Frequently  the 
jealous  wife  would  procure  them  to  be  whipped  or  otherwise 
punished  upon  false  charges,  and  often  when  their  husbands 
were  absent  had  them  punished  in  their  own  presence."  The 
tortures  sometimes  inflicted  upon  these  helpless  favorites  of  the 
husband  by  the  infuriated  wife,  in  order  to  render  them  less  at¬ 
tractive  to  the  husband,  are  not  to  be  described.  “  The  fact  of 
the  promiscuous  cohabitation  was  well  known  to  both  parents 
and  children.'5 

Xor  were  the  puisliments  less  severe  here  than  in  other  por¬ 
tions  of  the  slave  region.  Whipping  with  the  paddle,  scourging 
with  the  whip  of  twisted  bull's  hide  or  knotted  cords  :  torturing 
with  the  heavy  iron-horned  collar  and  with  heavy  iron  rings  with 
chain  attached,  worn  upon  the  ankle  for  months ;  confinement 
in  the  stocks  in  the  dark  cells  of  the  plantation  prisons,  often 
without  food,  and  hunting  with  blood-hounds,  were  all  practiced 
here  as  well  as  elsewhere.  “  Some  whites,"  says  Mr.  Roudanez, 


7 


iC  made  hunting  slaves  with  blood-hounds  a  regular  profession/' 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  all  this,  there  did  exist  among 
these  people  a  kind  of  human  life,  full,  it  is  true,  of  the  most 
unheard-of  toil,  and  of  the  most  dreadful  suffering,  and  yet,  in 
degradation,  it  did  not  approach  by  many  degrees,  the  slave 
life  upon  the  shores  of  South  Carolina. 

Besides  the  circumstances  already  referred  to,  there  were 
others  peculiar  to  this  section  of  country,  which  had  their  influ¬ 
ence  upon  the  working  of  the  slave-system,  as  well  as  on  the 
character  of  the  slave  population.  The  sugar  culture,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  at  certain  seasons  of  the  vear,  exacted  the  most 
formidable  labors,  required  also,  for  its  successful  prosecution,  a 
certain  degree  of  judgment  and  skill  in  those  employed  in  it. 
A  portion  of  the  people  on  every  sugar  plantation  had  to  be 
mechanics  and  artizans.  This  had  its  effect  in  the  development 
of  a  higher  general  intelligence  upon  these  plantations.  “  Gen¬ 
erally,”  says  Mr.  Boudanez,  “  upon  every  plantation  there  was 
at  least  one  man  who  had  somehow  learned  to  read  a  little,  and 
in  secret  used  to  read  to  the  others,  notwithstanding  the  severe 
punishment  always  inflicted,  upon  the  detection  of  such  offences.” 
“  On  the  day  following  that  on  which  the  news  of  the  execution 
of  J ohn  Brown  reached  New  Orleans,  I  started  for  a  plantation 
seventy -five  miles  up  the  river.  Soon  after  my  arrival  there,  a 
slave  gave  me  a  detailed  account  of  the  execution.  That  morn¬ 
ing  a  slave  in  the  sugar-house  had  asked  of  his  master  a  piece  of 
paper  to  wipe  some  portion  of  the  machinery.  lie  handed  him 
a  newspaper,  the  greater  part  of  which  he  retained,  and  after¬ 
wards  secretly  read  it  to  the  whole  force.  It  contained  an 

e J 

account  of  John  Brown’s  execution.” 

Another  fact  had  its  effect.  The  sugar  plantations  of 
the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi  for  the  most  part  front  upon 
the  river,  or  upon  some  bayou,  navigable  at  least  for  flat- 
boats,  and  in  the  rear  abut  upon  interminable  cypress  swamps. 
These  swamps  became  places  of  refuge  for  the  slave  pushed 
to  the  last  extremity,  very  difficult  of  access  even  to  the 
master  of  the  blood-hounds.  Many  instances  are  known  of 
slaves  having  lived  for  years  in  the  recesses  of  these  swamps, 
thickly  wooded  as  they  are  with  great  cypress  and  cotton¬ 
wood  trees,  from  whose  branches  hang  suspended  the  long 


8 


gray  moss,  covering  them  as  with  a  veil.  These,  thickly 
interspersed  with  an  undergrowth  of  brambles,  constitute  an 
almost  impenetrable  jungle.  Sometimes  they  lived  alone, 
and  sometimes  in  bands  of  a  greater  or  less  number,  often 
amounting  to  thirty,  or  even  fifty  persons,  building  for  them¬ 
selves,  upon  some  little  island  of  firmer  ground,  a  lodging-place, 
and  communicating  in  the  night,  by  secret  paths,  with  their 
fellows  on  the  plantations.  They  subsisted  by  carrying  off 
the  pigs,  turkeys,  and  chickens,  and  sometimes  they  “  roped  ” 
into  their  hiding-places  the  sheep,  or  other  cattle  of  the  mas¬ 
ters,  butchered  them,  and  exchanged  portions  of  the  meat  with 
their  friends  on  the  plantation  for  corn-meal.  Their  great 
enemies  in  these  swamps  were  the  mosquitoes.  In  the  night  no 
living  creature  can  stand  their  bite.  Cattle  left  exposed  are 
often  killed  by  them.  Every  night  they  were  obliged  to  keep 
up  a  smouldering  fire  of  cypress  branches,  the  smoke  of  which 
was  their  only  defence  against  these  hateful  insects. 

Many  marvellous  incidents  and  instances  of  heroism  are  re¬ 
lated  of  these  Mississippi  Maroons.  Mr.  Alfred  Jervis,  of  Hew 
Orleans,  one  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  “  Free  State 
Association,”  knew  a  man  who  had  lived  for  three  years  in  the 
top  of  a  large  cypress  tree,  although  often  hunted  by  the 
hounds.  Mr.  Jervis  also  related  an  instance  of  a  less  successful 
refugee,  who,  for  an  attempt  to  escape,  had  his  back  flayed  by 
the  blows  of  the  twisted  whip  of  dried  bulbs  hide,  and  was  then 
tied  with  his  face  to  a  tree,  and  left  all  night  to  be  devoured 
by  the  mosquitoes.  In  the  morning  some  of  his  fellow-slaves 
found  him,  covered  with  the  gorged  insects,  quite  dead. 

Octave  Johnson,  now  a  corporal  in  Company  C,  15th  Regi¬ 
ment  of  the  Corps  d’Afrique ,  as  related  by  himself  to  a  member 
of  the  Commission,  had  lived  with  his  band  of  thirty,  (ten 
women  and  twenty  men),  eighteen  months  in  the  swamps  of  St. 
James’  Parish.  His  master,  S.  Coutrell,  at  present  himself  a 
refugee  in  the  quagmires  of  secession,  had  purchased  him  at  a 
great  price,  and  had  taken  him  to  his  plantation  to  make  sugar 
hogsheads ;  for  Octave  was  a  cooper.  At  the  early  dawn  one 
morning,  Octave  was  found  asleep  at  his  bench.  His  allotted 
task  required  him  to  be  early  at  work.  He  had  risen  in  the 
first  hours  of  the  morning,  and,  repairing  to  his  place  of  toil, 


9 


seated  himself  upon  his  bench  to  wait  for  sufficient  light  to 
begin  his  labor.  “  I  suppose,”  said  he,  “  that  I  must  have  fallen 
asleep  ;  for  the  first  I  knew  I  found  myself  lying  on  the  ground, 
sort  of  stunned,  Massa  standing  over  me  with  a  big  stick  in  his 
hand.”  Two  stout  slaves  were  ordered  to  take  Octave  to  the 
whipping  place,  and  give  him  fifty  lashes. 

It  should  be  understood  that  whipping,  throughout  all  the  slave 
region,  was  by  no  means  what  is  known  by  that  name  else¬ 
where — not  at  all  the  same  thing  as  that  sometimes  applied  at 
the  North  to  refractory  school-boys.  In  these  slave  communities 
it  had  been  reduced  to  a  species  of  recognized  art.  Its  imple¬ 
ments  were  among  the  most  prominent  signs  of  slave  civiliza¬ 
tion,  as  Carlisle  savs  the  gallows  was,  formerly,  in  England.  In 
the  first  place,  the  whips  were  of  various  kinds,  according  to  the 
exact  effect  intended  to  be  produced.  There  was  the  whip  of 
knotted  hempen  cords  ;  the  whip  with  the  twisted  lash  of'  dried 
bull's  hide ;  the  coach-trace  whip,  and  the  paddle.  “  Some- 
times,”  says  Dr.  Hyde,  “  flat  hand  saws  were  used  as  whips." 
Then  there  were  various  exposures  and  postures.  Sometimes  the 
victim,  stripped  stark  naked  from  the  armpits  to  the  heels,  was 
laid,  face  downwards,  over  a  stout  beam,  supported  upon 
posts  at  the  proper  elevation,  with  the  feet  and  hands  fastened 
with  strong  ropes  to  stakes  driven  firmly  into  the  ground  on 
either  side.  In  that  posture  one  or  the  other  of  the  above 
mentioned  instruments  was  applied,  according  to  the  ultimate 
intention  of  the  master.  If  he  contemplated  a  future  sale  of  the 
slave,  the  paddle  was  generally  used.  This  consisted  of  a  broad 
piece  of  heavy  sole-leather,  some  fourteen  or  sixteen  inches  in 
length,  nailed  to  a  convenient  wooden  handle.  This  only 
bruised  the  flesh,  without  breaking  the  skin,  and  after  some 
weeks  or  months  all  signs  of  its  use  disappeared,  and  no  suspi¬ 
cion  was  aroused  in  any  future  purchaser,  of  the  indocility  of 
the  chattel.  On  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  all  the  other  instru¬ 
ments  lacerated  the  flesh  to  a  considerable  depth,  and  left  for¬ 
ever  after  enormous  ridges  or  welts.  Often  two  were  employed 
to  do  the  prescribed  work,  the  first  becoming  too  much  fatigued 
to  make  his  blows  heavy  enough  to  satisfy  the  critical  eye  of  the 
on-looking  master  or  overseer,  was  relieved  by  a  fresh  hand, 
until  the  required  number  of  blows  had  been  all  told  ;  and  then, 
2 


10 


the  arms  being  loosed,  a  pail  of  old  beef  or  pork  brine  was 
dashed  upon  the  back.  If  the  victim  had  fainted,  this  usually 
roused  him,  and  staunched  the  flowing  blood.  He  was  then  set 
at  liberty,  and  allowed  to  begin  his  daily  task  in  the  cane  or 
cotton-field. 

The  operation  was  frequently  varied  by  a  change  of  posture. 
Sometimes  the  victims  were  stripped  as  before  mentioned  and 
bound  to  a  tree  or  post.  Sometimes,  especially  women  in  the 
last  stages  of  child  bearing,  were  laid  naked  upon  the  ground, 
face  downward,  with  their  arms  and  legs  stretched  out  and  firmly 
bound  to  stakes,  “  a  hole,51  says  the  witness,  “being  dug  under¬ 
neath  large  enough  to  admit  the  pregnant  belly,55  and  then  the 
knotted  or  the  twisted  scourge,  the  coach  trace  or  the  paddle,  was 
applied  as  before  mentioned.  “  In  some  parishes,55  says  Mr. 
Jervis,  “  they  have  hired  whippers.” 

Of  this  nature  were  the  incentives  to  life-long  human  toil,  fur¬ 
nished  by  a  system  that  Bishop  Hopkins  and  Prof.  S.  F.  B. 
Morse  declare  to  be  of  Divine  ordination.  We  read  with  espe¬ 
cial  wonder  in  the  ancient  Scriptures  of  a  tribe  of  men  who  be¬ 
lieved  in  the  divinity  of  the  god  Moloch.  We  shudder  at  the 
ordeal  to  which  his  worship  subjected  his  votaries.  That  wor¬ 
ship  was  doubtless  the  creation  of  a  depraved  and  perverted 
human  intellect.  Upon  that  primal  age,  however,  the  Sun  of 
BioJiteousness  had  not  vet  arisen.  But  this  is  the  middle  of  the 

O  •' 

nineteenth  Christian  century.  What  is  to  be  said  of  the  de¬ 
votees  of  a  divinity  still  more  monstrous  and  cruel  than  the 
ancient  god  of  the  Ammonites  ? 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  what  I  have  here  been  describing 
was  the  ordinary  mode  of  punishment,  only  whipping,  and  by 
no  means  anything  unusual  or  extraordinary.  lSror  was  the 
spectacle  witnessed  alone  by  the  old  master  and  his  overseer,  but 
frequently  by  the  young  masters  and  mistresses  also,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  South  Carolina  planter,  referred  to  in  the  main  report 
of  the  Commission. 

But,  to  return  to  Octave.  He  said :  “  I  had  never  been  whip¬ 
ped,  but  I  had  heard  the  blows  and  the  groans  of  the  others,  and 
I  made  up  my  mind  quickly  to  run  for  the  swamp  which  lay  a 
mile  or  so  in  the  rear  of  the  sugar  house.55  Being  a  fleet  runner, 
Octave  outstripped  his  pursuers,  reached  the  swamp,  and 


11 


plunged  into  its  jungles.  After  some  days  he  found  the  band  of 
refugees  with  whom  he  afterwards  lived.  Of  course  his  master 
did  not  mean  to  lose  so  valuable  a  chattel.  Accordingly  he  sent 
for  a  famous  professional  slave-hunter,  Eugene  Jardeau  by  name, 
and  hired  him  with  his  pack  of  twenty  hounds  to  recover  the 
fugitive,  dead  or  alive. 

His  friends  on  the  plantation  having  given  him  and  his  com¬ 
panions  timely  notice,  the  band  immediately  set  about  prepar¬ 
ing  for  the  struggle.  Two  or  three  of  them  took  the  women,  and 
by  making  a  long  “  detour  ”  secreted  them  in  a  place  of  safety, 
returning  upon  their  own  tracks  to  the  path  that  led  to  their 
former  hiding  place,  having  (carefully  rubbed  the  soles  of  their 
feet  with  the  feet  of  rabbits,  with  which  they  had  previously  sup¬ 
plied  themselves  for  this  purpose,  and  dragging  these  after  them 
to  deceive  the  scent  of  the  hounds,)  with  clubs  in  their  hands 
they  waited  at  the  point  of  junction  for  the  attack.  All  day 
they  stood  together  and  fought  the  hounds,  slowly  retreating 
farther  and  farther  into  the  swamp.  They  succeeded  in  killing 
eight  of  them.  Towards  sun-down,  becoming  thoroughly  ex¬ 
hausted,  with  their  arms  and  legs  torn  by  the  fangs  of  the  dogs, 
and  having  lost  much  blood,  the  word  was  given  to  scatter  and  run. 

“  Sauve  qui pent.''  Octave  and  four  or  live  of  his  companions 
made  for  a  bayou  in  the  rear.  Under  the  headway  of  men 
fleeing  for  life,  they  reached  the  bank  to  discover  that  its  shallow 
waters,  obstructed  by  great  roots  and  fallen  trees,  were  full  of 
alligators.  They  could  not  stop  if  they  would — they  made  the 
leap  and  scrambled  through.  The  hounds  followed,  and  the  alli¬ 
gators,  not  touching  the  negroes,  attacked  the  dogs  with  great 
fury,  killing  six  of  them. 

Mr.  Jardeau  coming  up,  and  seeing  how  matters  stood, 
hastily  recalled  what  was  left  of  his  pack.  Octave  and  his  com¬ 
panions  escaped.  Xot  one  was  killed  or  taken.  He  was  asked 
how  he  explained  the  fact  that  the  alligators  did  not  even 
attempt  to  attack  him  and  his  companions,  but  fell  upon  the 
hounds  with  such  voracitv.  He  answered  :  “  D'un  no,  Massa. 

Some  ob  ’em  said  dey  touglit  t’was  God  ;  but,  for  my  part,  I  tink 
de  alligators  loved  dog’s  flesh  better'll  personal  flesh” 

Some  few  months  after  this  battle  with  the  blood-hounds  in  £  ^ 


12 


tlie  swamps  of  St.  James’  Parish,  another  battle  occurred,  which 
resulted  in  Gen.  Butler’s  taking  possession  of  Kew  Orleans,  and 
it  became  Mr.  Coutrell’s  turn  to  flee.  Octave  and  his  com¬ 
panions,  being  duly  advised  by  their  friends,  left  the  swamp, 
made  their  way  to  Camp  Parapet,  then  in  command  of  Gen. 
Phelps,  and  gave  themselves  up.  Most  of  the  men  enlisted  in 
the  army. 

Incidents  of  the  kind  above  mentioned  were  not  infrequent. 
The  swamps  were  never  free  of  negroes.  They  constituted  a 
species  of  asylum,  and  that  fact  had  its  effect  upon  the  character 
of  the  negro,  and  upon  the  working  of  the  system.  As  a  gen¬ 
eral  thing,  the  negro  became  more  self-reliant,  and  the  master 
more  wary,  often  adopting  very  inhuman  measures  of  precau¬ 
tion,  such  as  branding  with  a  hot  iron,  splitting  or  cropping  the 
ears,  and  compelling  the  suspected  to  wear  the  heavy  iron  collar 
with  horns,  called  “  a  choker.” 

Another  fact  that  had  an  important  influence  upon  the  sys¬ 
tem  in  the  region  under  consideration,  as  well  as  on  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  the  slave,  remains  to  be  mentioned.  The  valley  of  the 
Lower  Mississippi,  from  an  early  period  of  its  settlement,  con¬ 
tained  a  proportionately  large  free  colored  population.  In  1803, 
when  the  territory  of  which  the  State  of  Louisiana  forms  a  part 
was  ceded  by  the  French  Republic  to  the  LTnited  States,  these 
free  colored  men  were  already  quite  numerous,  and  many  of 
them  were  possessed  of  considerable  property.  They  were  not 
only  as  free  as  any  other  portion  of  the  population,  but  in  gen¬ 
eral  as  well  educated  and  intelligent.  Many  of  them  were  the 
children  of  the  early  white  settlers,  and  had  always  enjoyed  a 
certain  social  as  well  as  civil  equality.  As  to  the  enjoyment  of 
political  rights,  under  the  old  Spanish  and  French  regimes, 
neither  white  or  black  settlers  ever  had  much  experience ;  con¬ 
sequently,  there  had  never  arisen  among  them  much  question  of 
these  rights,  or  as  to  whom  they  belonged.  The  French  Repub¬ 
lic,  founded  upon  “  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,”  had  not  yet 
quite  forgotten  the  import  of  these  words,  and  hence  caused  to 
to  be  inserted  in  the  treaty  of  cession  a  solemn  stipulation,  in 
the  words  following,  to  wit : 


\ 


13 


Art.  3d.  “  The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  territory  shall  be  in¬ 
corporated  into  the  union  of  the  United  States,  and  admitted 
as  soon  as  possible,  according  to  the  principles  of  the  Federal 
Constitution,  to  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  rights,  advantages,  and 
immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States ;  and  in  the  mean 
time  they  shall  be  maintained  and  protected  in  the  free  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  their  liberty,  property,  and  the  religion  which  they 
profess.” 


Under  this  article  of  the  treaty  of  1803,  the  free  colored  peo¬ 
ple  of  Louisiana  have  always  held,  and  do  now  claim,  that  the 
government  of  the  United  States  was  solemnly  bound  to  secure 
to  them  “  all  the  rights,  advantages,  and  immunities  ”  that  were 
justly  due  to  any  other  free  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  territory, 
whatever  might  be  the  political  forms  which  it  was  subsequently 
permitted  to  assume ;  and  that,  therefore,  in  authorizing  the 
wdiite  inhabitants  of  the  territory  to  organize  it  into  slave  States 
under  such  constitutions  and  laws  as  excluded  them  from  all 
political  and  many  civil  rights  and  immunities,  the  government 
of  the  United  States  permitted  the  perpetration  of  a  great 
wrong,  not  only  against  them,  but  against  the  good  faith  and 
the  honor  of  the  whole  people  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  case  they  present,  even  upon  the 
letter  of  the  treaty,  can  be  successfully  traversed.  And  it  is 
still  more  difficult  to  understand  how  the  fact  of  their  having 
lain  under  a  great  wrong  for  sixty  years  can  now  be  set  up  as  a 
reason  for  refusing  to  rectify  it.  Besides,  to  day  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  free  colored  people  of  Louisiana  are,  as  a  body, 
as  well  educated,  as  intelligent,  as  orderly,  and  as  industrious  as 
any  other  equal  portion  of  the  common  population  of  the  State ; 
on  an  average,  as  rich  as  the  mass  of  the  people  of  the  Free 
States,'"'  and  certainly  far  more  loyal  than  their  white  fellow-citi- 


*  There  is  some  difficulty  in  getting  at  the  exact  number  of  the  free  colored 
population  of  Louisiana,  or  at  the  exact  assessed  value  of  the  property  on 
which  they  paid  taxes  in  any  given  year.  According  to  the  United  States 
census  of  18G03  the  free  colored  population  of  the  State  was  at  that  period 
18,647,  and,  from  the  best  information  I  could  obtain  at  New  Orleans,  the  as- 


14 


zens,  as  was  proved  in  tlie  summer  of  last  year,  when  Governor 
Shepley  made  a  call  for  volunteers  to  defend  the  city  of  h\ew 
Orleans  against  a  threatened  attack  of  the  rebel  army  under 
Magruder;  while  the  white  inhabitants,  even  many  of  those  that 
had  been  in  the  employ  of  the  Government,  held  back  and  re¬ 
fused  to  be  enrolled,  in  forty-eight  hours  after  the  call  addressed 
to  the  free  colored  people  was  issued,  more  than  one  hundred  of 
their  shops  and  places  of  business  were  closed  and  a  full  regi¬ 
ment  was  organized  and  ready  for  the  field,  and  within  seventy- 
two  hours  a  second.  Are  not  these  people,  then,  as  fit  in  all  re¬ 
spects  to  enjoy  and  exercise  the  rights  civil  and  political  of  citi¬ 
zenship,  as  they  whose  only  qualification  is  a  shade  whiter  skin, 
and  a  reluctant  swearing  to  an  oath  of  allegiance  under  protest, 
or  with  mental  reservation  ? 

The  truth  is  that  the  case  of  these  old  freemen  of  Louisiana  is 
a  sui  generis ,”  and  does  by  no  means  involve  the  question  con¬ 
nected  with  the  justice  or  expediency  of  granting  political  rights 
to  the  recently  emancipated  colored  people.  Their  claim  to 


sessed  value  of  the  property  on  which  they  paid  taxes  for  that  year  was  about 
$13,000,000.  This  gives  an  average  of  about  $700  for  each  person. 

But  the  population,  as  given  in  the  census  for  I860,  is  believed  to  be  con¬ 
siderably  below  the  true  estimate.  The  best  informed  persons,  old  residents 
of  New  Orleans,  and  familiar  with  the  subject,  putting  it  at  not  less  than 
25,000  at  the  present  time.  If  we  assume  the  assessed  value  of  their  property 
to  be  now  what  it  was  in  1800,  it  makes  an  average  for  each  person  of  $520. 

It  is  true  that,  according  to  the  State  census  of  1853,  as  stated  in  the  Loui¬ 
siana  State  Register,  the  free  colored  population  in  that  year  was  28,820.  But 
this  is  believed  not  to  be  accurate,  inasmuch  as,  according  to  the  same  State 
Register,  the  population  for  the  year  1850  was  but  17,4G2. 

These  discrepancies  arise  in  a  great  measure,  undoubtedly,  from  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  distinguishing  between  the  lightest  shade  of  the  colored  population 
and  the  darkest  shade  of  the  white,  and  the  consequent  latitude  of  classifica¬ 
tion,  according  to  the  caprice  of  the  persons  making  the  census.  It  is  believed, 
however,  that  the  estimate  of  from  23,000  to  25,000  for  the  population,  and 
from  13,000,000  to  15,000,000  as  the  assessed  value  of  the  property  upon 
which  they  have  paid  taxes,  approximates  the  truth. 

In  the  loyal  free  States,  according  to  the  Lrnited  States  census  for  1860,  the 
estimate  is  as  follows,  viz : 

Population,  19,239,851 ;  valuation  of  real  and  personal  property,  $9,325,- 
945,381 ;  giving  $484  to  each  person.— Nee  Nat.  Almanac ,  pp.  147  and  309. 


15 


the  enjoyment  of  these  rights  rests  upon  entirely  distinct  and 
very  different  grounds.  Besides,  the  Government  needs  the 
suffrages  of  these  people  in  defence  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union  at  this  very  hour,  almost  as  indispensably  as  it  needed 
their  arms  at  the  period  above  referred  to. 

But,  however  this  may  be,  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how 
so  numerous  and  intelligent  a  body  of  people,  living  and  thriv¬ 
ing  in  the  midst  of  slavery  in  spite  of  all  obstructions,  of  the 
same  race  as  the  enslaved,  should  have  had  an  important  influ¬ 
ence  as  well  upon  the  master  as  upon  the  slave,  inducing  the 
latter  to  greater  and  greater  longing  for  liberty,  and  for  the 
opportunity  to  live  and  labor,  free  from  the  scourge  of  the  driver’s 
whip  ;  and  the  former  to  more  and  more  wariness  and  severity 
of  repression. 

There  were  other  peculiar  circumstances  connected  with  the 
working  of  the  slave  system  in  the  Talley  of  the  Lower  Missis¬ 
sippi,  to  which  I  need  not  now  refer.  The  facts  here  mentioned 
are  sufficient  to  show  that,  in  its  main  features,  slavery  was 
here  of  the  same  general  nature  as  elsewhere.  Its  results  and 
human  products,  are  what  we  have  principally  to  deal  with,  and 
these  also  are  everywhere  nearly  identical.  Thoroughly  to  com¬ 
prehend  these,  and  to  know  how  to  dispose  of  them,  is  the  great 
necessity  that  presses  upon  our  statesmen  and  rulers  in  the 
present  hour. 

As  I  have  before  said,  here,  upon  the  banks  of  the  great 
river,  these  results  and  products  are  still  to  be  seen,  side  by 
side,  the  colored  man,  as  slavery  has  left  him,  and  the  white 
man,  as  slavery  has  made  him. 

Allow  me  briefly  to  present  them,  not  in  the  light  of  my  own 
personal  observation  alone,  but  rather  in  that  of  the  experience 
of  those  whose  duty  it  has  been  to  mingle  with  them,  and  to 
deal  practically  with  many  of  the  troublesome  and  disturbing 
questions  arising  out  of  the  great  transformation  going  on  in 
their  midst. 

And,  first,  as  to  the  colored  man.  Gen.  Banks,  in  command 
of  the  Department  of  the  Gulf,  whose  experience  and  earnest 
study  of  the  subject  matter  under  consideration,  gives  weight  to 
his  testimony,  declared  to  me  that  he  had  learned  far  more  of 
the  colored  men  than  of  the  white ;  that  they  understood  much 


16 


better  the  requirements  of  their  own  peculiar  position  in  the 
present  exigency  than  the  white  men  did  of  theirs,  and  accepted 
them  much  more  readily  and  wisely ;  and  that,  in  his  judgment, 
“  whoever  else  might  fail  in  the  great  revolution,  it  would  not 
be  the  black  man.” 

And,  in  a  letter  from  Alexandria,  Louisiana,  in  answer  to 
certain  inquiries  addressed  to  him,  previous  to  my  departure 
from  New  Orleans,  under  date  of  March  28th,  1864,  Gen.  Banks 
writes : 

“  I  entertain  no  doubt  whatever  of  the  capabilities  of  the 
emancipated  colored  people  to  meet  and  discharge  the  duties 
incident  to  the  great  change  in  their  condition.  I  have  seen 
them  in  all  situations,  within  the  last  year  and  a  half,  and 
it  is  with  much  pleasure  I  say,  as  I  stated  to  you  in  person, 
that  they  seem  to  me  to  have  a  clearer  comprehension  of  their  po¬ 
sition,  and  the  duties  which  rest  upon  them,  than  any  other  class 
of  our  people,  accepting  the  necessity  of  labor  which  rests  upon 
them  as  upon  others.  The  conditions  they  uniformly  impose 
show'  the  good  sense  with  which  they  approach  the  change  in 
their  condition. 

u  They  demand,  in  the  first  instance,  that  to  whatever  punish¬ 
ment  they  may  be  subjected,  they  shall  not  be  flogged. 

u  2d.  That  they  shall  labor  only  when  they  are  well  treated. 

“  3d.  That  families  should  not  be  separated. 

“4th.  That  their  children  shall  be  educated. 

66  With  these  stipulations  I  have  never  found  any  person  of  that 
race  who  did  not  readily  accept  the  necessity  of  continuous  and 
faithful  labor  at  just  rates  of  compensation,  which  they  seem 
willing  to  leave  to  the  Government.  As  far  as  the  experiment 
goes  in  this  department,  they  have  justified  in  the  fullest  degree 
this  conclusion,  and,  subject  to  the  conditions  wdiich  they  im¬ 
pose,  they  are  willing  to  and  have  rendered  faithful  labor. 

“  There  were  in  this  department,  when  I  assumed  command, 
many  thousands  of  colored  persons  vfithout  employment  or 
home,  wTio  were  decimated  by  disease  and  death  of  the  most 
frightful  character.  To  these,  natives  of  the  plantations  in  the 
department,  have  been  added  many  thousand  fugitives  from  the 
surrounding  States,  of  every  age  and  condition.  There  are  not, 


17 


at  this  time,  500  persons  that  are  not  self-supporting,  ancl  there 
has  not  been  in  the  last  year,  any  day  when  we  would  not  have 
gladly  accepted  ten  or  twenty  thousand,  irrespective  of  their 
condition,  in  addition  to  those  we  have  of  our  own.  Except  that 
the  negro  understood  the  necessities  of  his  position,  and  was 
able,  in  the  language  of  your  letter,  “  to  meet  and  discharge  the 
duties  incident  to  the  great  change  in  his  condition,”  this  result 
would  have  been  physically  impossible. 

“  Wherever,  in  the  department,  they  have  been  well  treated, 
and  reasonably  compensated,  they  have  invariably  rendered 
faithful  service  to  their  employers. 

“  From  many  persons  who  manage  plantations,  I  have  received 
the  information  that  there  is  no  difficulty  whatever  in  keeping 
them  at  work,  if  the  conditions  to  which  I  have  above  referred 
are  complied  with.” 

And  George  II.  Ilanks,  Colonel  of  the  15th  Regiment,  Corps 
d’Afrique,  member  of  the  Board  of  Enrollment,  and  Superin¬ 
tendent  of  negro  labor  in  the  Department  of  the  Gulf,  under 
date  of  February  Cth,  1861,  deposes  :  “  that  he  went  to  Louisi¬ 
ana  as  a  Lieutenant  in  the  12th  Connecticut  Regiment,  under 
Gen.  Butler ;  that  he  was  appointed  superintendent  of  contra¬ 
bands  under  Brig.  Gen.  T.  W.  Sherman.  The  negroes,  he  says, 
“  came  in  scarred,  wounded,  and  some  with  iron  collars  round 
their  necks.  I  set  them  at  work  on  abandoned  plantations,  and 
on  the  fortifications.  At  one  time  we  had  G,500  of  them  ;  there 
was  not  the  slightest  difficulty  with  them.  They  are  more  will¬ 
ing  to  work,  and  more  patient  than  any  set  of  human  beings  I 
ever  saw.  It  is  true  there  is  a  general  dislike  to  return  to  their 
old  masters  ;  and  those  who  have  remained  at  home  are  suspi¬ 
cious  of  foul  play,  and  feel  it  to  be  necessary  to  run  away  to  test 
their  freedom.  This  year  the  dislike  has  very  much  lessened  ; 
they  boffin  to  feel  themselves  more  secure,  and  do  not  hesitate 
to  return  for  wages.  The  negroes  willingly  accept  the  condition 
of  labor  for  their  own  maintenance,  and  the  musket  for  their 
freedom .  I  knew  a  family  of  five,  who  were  freed  by  the  volun¬ 
tary  enlistment  of  one  of  the  boys.  lie  entered  the  ranks  for 
the  avowed  purpose  of  freeing  his  family.  Ilis  name  was 
Moore ;  he  was  owned  by  the  Messrs.  Leeds,  iron-founders  ;  they 


18 


resided  within  one  of  the  Parishes  excepted  in  the  Proclamation 
of  Emancipation.  He  was  the  first  man  to  fall  at  Pascagoula. 
Upon  starting,  he  said  to  his  family  :  44  I  know  I  shall  fall,  but 
you  will  be  free.” 

“A  negro  soldier  demanded  his  children  at  my  hands.  I 
wanted  to  test  his  affection.  I  said  :  4  they  had  a  good  home.’ 
lie  said :  4  Lieut.,  I  want  to  send  my  children  to  school ;  my 
wife  is  not  allowed  to  see  them ;  I  am  in  your  service ;  I  wear 
military  clothes ;  I  have  been  in  three  battles ;  I  was  in  the 
assault  at  Port  Hudson ;  I  want  my  children ;  they  are  my  flesh 
and  blood.’  ” 

Col.  Hanks,  whose  true-hearted  and  faithful  service  to  the 
colored  people  in  the  Department  of  the  Gulf,  cannot  be  too 
highly  appreciated,  did  not,  of  course,  undertake  to  withstand 
that  appeal.  The  children  were  delivered  to  the  father. 

Hext  to  the  right  to  work  for  his  own  maintenance  and  that 
of  his  family,  the  colored  man  here,  as  elsewhere,  asks  for  the 
privilege  of  sending  his  children  to  school. 

44  The  colored  people,”  says  Col.  Hanks,  44  manifest  the  great¬ 
est  anxiety  to  educate  their  children,  and  they  thoroughly  ap¬ 
preciate  the  benefits  of  education.  I  have  known  a  family  to  go 
with  two  meals  a  day,  in  order  to  save  fifty  cents  a  week  to  pay 
an  indifferent  teacher  for  their  children.” 

The  universal  and  urgent  desire  of  the  colored  people  for  edu¬ 
cation  was  most  strikingly  illustrated  by  a  fact  that  came  to  my 
knowledge  during  a  recent  visit  to  Port  Hudson.  In  each  of 
the  camps  of  the  colored  regiments,  the  best  built  cabin  was  a 
school-house.  These  regiments  had  obtained  the  authorization 
of  Gen.  Andrews  for  the  establishment  of  regimental  schools. 
They  proceeded  with  their  own  hands  to  erect  school-houses,  and, 
at  their  own  cost,  to  procure  teachers  (in  some  of  the  regiments 
the  chaplains  undertook  that  duty) ;  and,  according  to  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  their  officers,  all  their  leisure  time  was  most  assiduously 
and  perseveringly  devoted  to  their  studies.  Ought  not  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  to  encourage  this  most  praiseworthy  desire  of  the  colored 
regiments,  by  providing  for  each,  at  least  one  permanent  teacher  \ 
A  disabled  veteran  white  soldier,  might  be  thus  employed. 

A  desire  for  education,  a  love  of  knowledge  in  any  community 


19 


or  people  have  been  always  considered  the  surest  proofs  of  their 
intrinsic  worth,  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  their  capacity  for 
civilization  and  future  advancement.  The  extraordinary  mani¬ 
festation  of  this  love  and  desire  among  the  emancipated  colored 
people,  vhen  taken  in  connection  with  their  previous  condition 
of  degradation,  is  one  of  the  most  amazing  facts  with  respect  to 
them.  And  when  contrasted  with  the  almost  universal  indiffer¬ 
ence,  even  contempt,  with  which  the  poor  Southern  whites  re¬ 
gard  that  matter,  is  well  calculated  to  stagger  the  white  man’s 
boast  of  the  great  superiority  of  his  race.  The  colored  man 
came  out  of  Africa  without  a  single  element  of  civilization. 
Not  even  a  tradition  of  any  trace  of  education  belongs  to  his  an¬ 
cestry.  On  the  other  hand,  what  are  called  “  the  poor  white 
trash  ”  of  the  Slave  States,  are  for  the  most  part,  the  descendants 
of  the  same  race  as  the  men  who  have  carried  our  civilization 
from  the  hills  of  New  England  through  the  great  wilderness,  to 
the  shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  They  set  out  upon  their  career 
with  many  advantages  of  climate  and  soil,  and  with  equal  op¬ 
portunities  for  education  and  enlightenment.  But  there  stood 
in  their  way  the  formidable  barriers  of  the  mastership.  Its  all 
devouring  darkness  swallowed  them  up,  and  to-day  it  can  only 
be  said  of  them,  that  no  more  ignorant,  demoralized,  and  pitiable 
community  of  human  beings  ever  lived  in  any  civilized  country, 
in  any  age. 

It  may  therefore  be  questioned,  whether  after  all,  the  most 
pernicious  and  fatal  work  of  the  masters  has  not  been  wrought 
against  their  own  race,  even  leaving  out  of  the  account  their 
present  attempt  to  overthrow  the  grandest  results  of  its  history — 
the  nationality,  civilization,  and  free  institutions  of  the  People 
of  the  United  States. 

“  Besides  their  hearty  appreciation  of  education,  the  colored 
people,”  says  Col.  Hanks,  “  are  very  religious  and  devotional, 
and  through  this  channel  are  easily  controlled  and  taught.  I 
have  had  frequent  exhibitions  of  their  trust  in  God  relative  to 
their  freedom.  I  have  known  them  to  pray  to  God  to  bless  the 
d — d  Yankees.” 


“  The  negroes,”  says  Mr.  Koudanez,  “  are  much  more  virtuous 
since  the  Proclamation  of  Freedom.  The  men  respect  them¬ 
selves  much  more,  and  the  women  are  much  more  chaste,  because 


20 


an  honest  livelihood  is  open  to  them.  Cohabitation  was  often 
prompted  by  their  wants,  such  as  clothing  and  other  necessaries.” 

It  is  hardly  necessary  for  me  to  speak  of  the  character  of 
the  colored  man  as  a  soldier,  as  presented  here  in  the  Valley  of 
the  Mississippi.  The  universal  official  attestation  to  his  soldierly 
bearing  and  true  valor  under  the  severest  trials,  has  put  that 
beyond  question.  Xor  are  his  sobriety,  orderliness,  and  willing 
submission  to  discipline,  less  conspicuous.  Gen.  Andrews,  in 
command  at  Port  Hudson,  recently  assured  me  that  his  colored 
troops  were  his  best  troops,  that  they  performed  all  their  duties, 
and  especially  fatigue  duties,  with  greater  cheerfulness  and  more 
faithfully  than  the  white  regiments ;  and  that,  with  competent 
officers,  he  believed  no  troops  would  be  more  reliable. 

Even  the  single  instance  of  apparent  insubordination  which 
occurred  recently  at  Fort  Jackson,  was  provoked  by  such  un¬ 
heard-of  outrages  on  the  part  of  the  Lieut. -Col.,  and  the  other 
white  officers  implicated,  that  Gen.  Dwight,  who  was  sent  there 
by  General  Banks  to  investigate  the  matter,  personally  declared 
to  me,  that  the  colored  soldiers  were  blameless.  The  officers 
were  dismissed  from  the  service — a  very  light  punishment,  con¬ 
sidering  the  enormity  of  their  offences. 

O  «y 

This  affair  was  published  in  many  public  journals  in  the 
United  States  and  abroad  as  a  case  of  mutiny.  It  had  really 
nothing  of  the  animus  of  a  mutiny.  AY  hat  the  men  proposed  to 
do  was  to  take  with  them  their  shameless  and  guilty  officers, 
march  to  Xew  Orleans  and  deliver  themselves  up  to  Gen.  Banks 
as  the  Commander-in-Chief. 

AYe  need  not  then  despair  of  the  emancipated  negro.  Xot- 
withstanding  the  degradation  imposed  upon  him  by  the  slave 
system,  there  is  much  left  in  him  to  build  upon.  He  is  at  least 
ready  and  willing  to  undertake  the  performance  of  his  humble 
and  toilsome  part  in  the  new  order  of  things.  Indeed,  if  one 
may  take  as  a  proof,  the  results  of  the  life-struggle  and  history 
of  the  old  free  colored  people  of  Louisiana,  before  referred  to,  the 
conclusion  is  unavoidable,  that  the  black  man  is  not  only  capable 
of  self-guidance  and  self-maintenance,  but,  that  under  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  higher  and  nobler  human  motives  and  incentives,  his 
progress  in  the  arts  and  attainments  of  civilized  life,  is  subject 
only  to  the  same  laws  that  control  that  of  other  races  of  men. 


21 


On  tlie  other  hand,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  white  man,  his 
old  master,  and  of  his  capacity,  disposition,  and  attitude  relative 
to  the  part  which  he  is  called  upon  to  perform  in  the  new  indus¬ 
trial  and  social  system  ? 

Col.  Hanks,  a  large  portion  of  whose  daily  life,  for  two  years 
past,  has  been  spent  in  daily  intercourse  with  the  planters  in  the 
Department  of  the  Gulf,  declares  that  “  although  they  begin  to 
see  that  Slavery  is  dead,  yet  the  spirit  of  Slavery  still  lives 
among  them.  Many  of  them  are  even  more  rampant  to  enslave 
the  negro  than  ever  before.  They  make  great  endeavors  to  re¬ 
cover  what  they  call  their  oxen  negroes.  One  planter  offered  me 
§5,000  to  return  his  negroes.  They  have  even  hired  men  to  steal 
them  from  my  own  camp.  (The  old  spirit  still  prompting  to  the 
old  crime,  which,  long  ago,  was  declared  felony  by  the  law  of 
nations  if  perpetrated  in  Africa.)  ”  “  They  yield,”  he  continues, 

“  to  the  idea  of  freedom  only  under  compulsion.  They  submit 
to  the  terms  dictated  by  the  Government,  because  obliged  so  to 
do.  Mr.  "V .  B.  Marmillon,  one  of  the  richest  and  most  exten¬ 
sive  sugar  planters  in  the  whole  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  took 
the  oath  of  allegiance,  but  refused  to  work  his  plantation  unless 
he  could  have  his  own  negroes  returned  to  him.  lie  had  1,450 
acres  of  cane  under  cultivation ;  his  whole  family  of  plantation 
hands  left  him  and  came  to  Hew  Orleans,  reporting  themselves 
to  me.  Among  them  could  be  found  every  species  of  mechanic 
and  artisan.  I  called  them  up  and  informed  them  that  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  had  taken  possession  of  old  master’s  crop,  and  that  they 
were  needed  to  take  it  off,  and  would  be  paid  for  their  labor. 
All  consented  to  return  ;  but  next  morning  when  the  time  came 
for  their  departure,  not  one  would  go.  One  of  them  said  :  “  I 
will  go  anywhere  else  to  work,  but  you  may  shoot  me  before  I 
will  return  to  the  old  plantation.”  I  afterwards  ascertained  that 
Marmillon,  whom  they  called  ‘  Old  Cotton  Beard,’  had  boasted 
in  the  presence  of  two  colored  girls,  house  servants,  how  he 
would  serve  them  when  he  once  more  had  them  in  his  power. 
These  girls  had  walked  more  than  thirty  miles  in  the  night  to 
bring  the  information  to  their  friends.”  These  people  were  set  to 
work  elsewhere. 

“  It  is  undoubtedly  true,”  says  Col.  Hanks,  “  that  this  year  a 
change  for  the  better  seems  to  be  taking  place.  In  some  parishes 


22 


the  letting  of  plantations  to  Northern  men  has  a  powerful  effect. 
The  disposition  of  the  planters,  however,  towards  their  old 
slaves,  when  they  consent  to  hire  them,  is  by  no  means  friendly. 
I  told  a  planter  recently,  that  it  was  the  express  order  of  Gen. 
Banks  that  the  negroes  should  be  educated.  He  replied  that, 
(no  one  should  teach  his  negroes .’  ” 

Col.  Hanks  further  declares  it  as  his  deliberate  judgment  that 
u  if  civil  government  be  established  here,  and  military  rule 
withdrawn,  there  is  the  greatest  danger  that  the  negro  would 
become  subject  to  some  form  of  serfdom.” 

His  testimony  on  this  point  is  referred  to  elsewhere. 

The  statement  of  Col.  Hanks,  and  the  general  correctness  of 
his  views,  were  concurred  in  by  many  other  intelligent  persons, 
familiar  with  the  subject,  and  my  own  personal  observation  fully 
confirms  them.  In  a  stretch  of  three  hundred  miles  up  and 
down  the  Mississippi,  but  one  creole  planter  was  found  (there 
may,  of  course,  have  been  others  with  whom  I  did  not  come  in 
contact,)  who  heartily  and  unreservedly  adopted  the  idea  of  free 
labor,  and  honestly  carried  it  out  upon  his  plantation.  And 
although  he  declared  that,  in  itself  it  was  successful  much  beyond 
his  expectation,  “  yet,”  he  said,  “  my  life  and  that  of  my  family 
are  rendered  very  unhappy  by  the  opposition  and  contumely  of 
my  neighbors.” 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  the  virus  of  slavery,  the  lust  of  own¬ 
ership,  in  the  hearts  of  these  old  masters,  is  as  virulent  and 
active  to-dav  as  it  ever  was.  Many  of  them  admit  that  the  old 
form  of  slavery  is  for  the  present,  broken  up.  They  do  not 
hesitate  even  to  express  the  opinion  that  the  experiment  of  se¬ 
cession  is  a  failure ;  but  they  scoff  at  the  idea  of  freedom  for  the 
negro,  and  repeat  the  old  argument  of  his  incapacity  to  take 
care  of  himself,  or  to  entertain  any  higher  motive  for  exertion 
than  that  of  the  whip.  They  await  with  impatience  the  with¬ 
drawal  of  the  military  authorities,  and  the  re-establishment  of 
the  civil  power  of  the  State  to  be  controlled  and  used  as  hitherto 
for  the  maintenance  of  what,  to  them  doubtless,  appears  the 
paramount  object  of  all  civil  authority,  of  the  State  itself,  some 
form  of  the  slave  system. 

With  slight  modifications,  the  language  recently  used  by 
Judge  Humphrey  in  a  speech  delivered  at  a  Union  meeting  at 


23 


Huntsville,  Alabama,  seems  most  aptly  to  express  the  hopes  and 
purposes  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  old  masters  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Mississippi,  who  have  consented  to  qualify  their  loyalty 
to  the  Union  by  taking  the  oath  prescribed  by  the  President’s 
Proclamation  of  Amnesty.  After  advising  that  Alabama  should 
at  once  return  to  the  Union  by  simply  rescinding  the  ordinance 
of  secession ,  and  after  expressing  the  opinion  that  the  old  in¬ 
stitution  of  slavery  was  gone,  Judge  Humphrey  says :  “  I 
believe,  in  case  of  a  return  to  the  Union,  we  would  receive 
political  co-operation ,  so  as  to  secure  the  management  of  that 
labor  by  those  who  were  slaves.  There  is  really  no  difference , 
in  my  opinion ,  whether  ice  hold  them  as  absolute  slaves ,  or 
obtain  their  labor  by  some  other  method.  Of  course  we  prefer 
the  old  method.  But  that  question  is  not  now  before  us.” 

It  is  true  that  Gen.  Banks  entertains  slightly  different 
views  of  the  disposition  and  purposes  of  the  planters,  predi¬ 
cated,  however,  on  the  belief  that  the  Government  will  adopt 
some  system  of  “  sufficient  supervision  to  compel  the  negro 
to  labor,”  although,  as  we  have  seen  he  elsewhere  declares  that 
good  treatment  and  fair  wages  have  in  all  cases  been  found 
compulsion  enough.  What  the  old  masters  understand  by 
“  a  supervision  to  compel  the  negroes  to  labor,”  is  not  difficult 
to  imagine ;  certainly  it  is  not  good  treatment  and  fair  wages. 

In  the  letter  before  referred  to,  Gen.  Banks  says:  “I  have 
no  doubt  that  many  of  the  planters  within  our  lines,  who  are 
protected  by  the  Government  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  prop¬ 
erty,  honestly  accept  the  new  situation,  and  enter  into  the 
idea  of  free  labor  with  sincerity ;  but  it  is  coupled  with  an  incre¬ 
dulity  as  to  the  success  of  the  experiment,  natural  to  their  situa¬ 
tion,  and  to  the  ideas  in  which  they  have  been  educated.  This 
is  fostered  more  by  the  intractability  and  brutality  of  the  over¬ 
seers — the  middle  class  between  the  laborer  and  the  employer — 
than  it  is  by  any  innate  disposition  of  the  planter  himself,  and 
their  disbelief  of  any  sufficient  governmental  supervision  to  com¬ 
pel  the  negro  to  labor ,  to  which  they  think  he  is  disinclined.  If 
such  governmental  supervision  fail  in  this  regard,  the  experiment 
itself  will  fail.” 

For  a  more  full  expression  of  the  opinions  of  Gen.  Banks  on 


24 


this  subject,  reference  may  be  had  to  a  copy  of  his  letter  here¬ 
with  submitted. 

The  opinions  hereinbefore  expressed  as  to  the  spirit  and  dis¬ 
position  of  the  old  masters,  is  fully  and  explicitly  sustained  by 
the  testimony  of  Brig.-Gen.  James  S.  Wadsworth,  than  whom  no 
man  has  had  better  opportunities  for  an  intelligent  judgment. 

In  his  examination  before  the  Commission,  soon  after  his  re¬ 
turn  from  an  olhcial  tour  through  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
in  the  early  part  of  the  past  winter,  in  speaking  of  the  state  of 
things  in  Louisiana,  Gen.  Wadsworth  said  : 

44  There  is  one  thing  that  must  be  taken  into  account,  and  that 
is,  that  there  will  exist  a  very  strong  disposition  among  the  mas¬ 
ters  to  control  these  people,  and  keep  them  as  a  subordinate  and 
subjected  class.  Undoubtedly  they  intend  to  do  that.  I  think 
the  tendency  to  establish  a  system  of  serfdom  is  the  great  danger 
to  be  guarded  against.  I  talked  with  a  planter  in  the  La 
Fourche  district  near  Tibadouville  ;  he  said  he  was  not  in  favor 
of  secession  ;  he  avowed  his  hope  and  expectation  that  slavery 
would  be  restored  there  in  some  form.  I  said :  4  If  we  went 
away  and  left  these  people  now,  do  you  suppose  you  could  re¬ 
duce  them  again  to  slavery  V  lie  laughed  to  scorn  the  idea  that 
they  could  not.  4  What,’  said  I,  4  these  men,  who  have  had  arms 
in  their  hands  V  4  Yes,’  he  said,  4  we  should  take  the  arms  away 
from  them,  of  course.’  ” 

Much  other  testimony  of  like  import  might  be  adduced,  but 
it  is  believed  not  necessary  to  a  clear  understanding  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  attitude  and  position  of  the  two  principal  constituent  ele¬ 
ments  of  the  disrupted  slave  society,  in  the  region  under  consid¬ 
eration* 

For  the  sake  of  greater  perspicuity,  I  have  hitherto  refrained 
from  any  reference  to  the  treatment  and  actual  condition  of  the 
emancipated  population,  or  to  the  labor  system  recently  intro¬ 
duced  in  the  Department  of  the  Gulf.  In  what  I  deem  it  my 
duty  to  say  of  the  former,  I  refer  for  the  most  part  to  a  period 
antecedent  to  the  date  of  the  proclamation  of  Gen.  Banks  pre¬ 
scribing  the  latter;  that  proclamation  having  been  issued  but  a 
few’  days  previous  to  my  arrival  at  Yew  Orleans. 

Col.  Hanks  speaks  of  the  patience  of  these  people.  Certainly, 
their  uncomplaining  endurance  under  the  severest  privation  and 


25 


suffering,  is  one  of  tlie  most  remarkable  characteristics  of  their 
race  everywhere.  Their  previous  life  of  slavery  inured  them  to 
daily,  habitual  suffering,  and  up  to  this  hour,  their  initiation 
into  Freedom  has  been  attended  with  little  else  than  danger,  ill 
usage,  deprivation,  sickness,  and  bereavement.  The  mortality 
among  them  in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi  has  been  frightful. 
The  most  competent  judges  compute  it  at  not  less  than  25  per 
cent,  in  the  last  two  years.  With  few  exceptions,  they  have 
everywhere  come  under  the  control  of  incompetent  and  other¬ 
wise  unfit  officials.  Often  here,  as  elsewhere,  they  have  fallen 
a  prey  to  the  avaricious  and  unscrupulous.  In  many  instances, 
clothed  in  rags,  without  wholesome  or  sufficient  food,  lodged  at 
night  without  beds  or  bedding,  they  have  toiled  for  months,  and 
in  the  end  have  been  turned  off  with  little  or  no  compensation. 
The  great  exposures  to  which  they  have  been  subjected,  gave 
rise  to  severe  and  fatal  diseases  anion sst  them,  in  which  they 
were  left,  in  many  cases,  without  proper  care  or  medical  attend¬ 
ance.  Great  mortality  was  a  natural  consequence.  Much  de¬ 
privation  and  suffering  were,  under  the  most  favorable  circum¬ 
stances,  inevitable  to  the  exigencies  in  which  they  were  placed 
by  the  war.  But  I  should  fail  in  my  duty  if  I  neglected  to  de¬ 
clare,  that  in  my  judgment,  many  of  the  injuries  of  which  they 
have  been  the  victims,  and  a  great  deal  of  their  suffering,  have 
resulted  from  the  failure  of  the  national  authorities  to  provide  a 
proper  and  uniform  system  for  their  care  and  protection. 

In  departments  where,  as  here  in  the  Department  of  the  Gulf, 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  chief  military  authorities 
have  had  at  heart  their  best  interests,  occupied  as  they  have  been 
with  the  movements  of  great  armies  and  by  the  absorbing  cares 
of  the  military  government  devolved  upon  them,  it  was  inevit¬ 
able  that  they  should  often  fall  into  the  hands  of  incompetent 
and  unfaithful  subalterns  ;  even  under  the  system  recently  put 
into  operation  here,  and  which  in  many  respects  is  certainly 
better  than  the  lack  of  system  previously  existing,  they  come  di¬ 
rectly  under  the  control  and  government  of  the  assistant  provost 
marshals,*  to  each  of  whom  is  assigned  a  certain  district  of  the 

*  “  All  questions,”  says  the  order  of  Gen.  Banks,  “between  the  employer  and  (he 
employed,  until  other  tribunals  are  established,  will  be  decided  by  the  provost 

marshals  of  the  parishes.” 

4 


26 


planting  region.  These  assistant  provost  marshals  are  usually 
young  subalterns,  army  officers,  captains  or  lieutenants.  They 
are  received  into  the  houses  of  the  planters  and  treated  with  a 
certain  consideration.  It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  they 
should  resist  the  influences  that  are  brought  to  bear  upon  them, 
or  that  often,  without  being  fully  conscious  of  it,  they  should 
not  become  the  employer's  instrument  of  great  injustice  and  ill 
treatment  towards  his  colored  laborers. 

An  upright  and  competent  witness  whose  testimony  is  here¬ 
with  submitted,  says :  “  I  am  free  to  declare  that  the  provost 
marshals  have  not  done  justice  to  the  laborers  on  the  plantations. 
They  do  not  see  that  Gen.  Banks’  orders  are  carried  out.  On 
many  plantations  whipping  is  still  permitted.”  More  than  one 
instance  of  great  neglect,  injustice  and  abuse  have  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  Commission. 

O 

The  plan  of  Gen.  Banks  has  been  in  operation  too  short  a 
time  to  judge  fully  of  its  merits.  But,  as  I  have  just  said,  it  is 
believed  on  the  whole  and  as  a  temporary  arrangement,  superior 
to  any  hitherto  adopted  in  that  department.  As  a  permanent 
system  it  contains  great  defects.  In  the  first  place  it  leaves  the 
classification  of  the  laborers  to  be  determined  between  the  employ¬ 
ers  and  the  assistant  provost  marshals,  which  is  practically  leav¬ 
ing  it  to  the  employers  themselves.  Then,  secondly,  without 
reference  to  the  capacities  or  wishes  of  the  employed,  or  to  the 
competition  of  the  labor  market,  it  determines  beforehand  the 
wages  of  their  labor. 

In  the  third  place,  it  implies  that  the  clothing  and  subsistence 
of  the  laborer  and  his  family,  should  be  left  to  the  employers’ 
sense  of  what  is  needful  for  them,  with  liberty  to  be  sure,  for 
the  employed  to  commute  for  clothing  at  the  rate  of  three  dol¬ 
lars  a  month  for  first  class  hands,  and  in  similar  proportion  for 
other  classes. 

If  the  only  object  to  be  accomplished  was  simply  “  to  compel 
the  negro  to  labor”  in  a  condition  of  perpetual  subordination 
and  subjection,  this  arrangement  would  be  appropriate  enough. 
But  if  the  object  be  to  make  the  colored  man  a  self-supporting 
and  self-defending  member  of  the  community,  then  he  must  be 
placed  in  a  position  where  he  can  determine  the  value  of  his 


27 


own  labor,  and  be  left  to  take  the  responsibilities  of  his  own  ex¬ 
istence  and  wrell  being,  as  well  as  that  of  his  family. 

As  a  general  proposition  this  is  too  plain,  and  in  itself  too 
cogent  to  require  argument.  In  the  actual  condition  of  things 
in  the  Department  of  the  Gulf,  it  might  not  be  convenient  or 
even  possible  to  give  it  full  effect  at  the  present  moment ;  but 
the  temporary  adoption  of  an  opposite  principle,  should  not  be 
allowed  to  become  the  basis  of  a  permanent  system,  which  would 
differ  very  little  in  its  practical  working  from  that  of  slavery 
itself. 

In  regard  to  classification,  clothing,  and  the  rate  of  wages,  the 
plan  of  Mr.  Win.  P.  Mellen,  Agent  of  the  Treasury  Department 
at  Natchez,  appears  to  me  a  much  nearer  approach  to  right 
principles  and  justice,  as  between  employer  and  employed.  In 
this  plan  the  classification  is  determined  beforehand,  and  the 
employed  are  allowed  to  clothe  themselves.  The  rate  of  wages 
is  here  also  fixed  by  authority,  which,  as  before  suggested,  is 
only  to  be  justified  by  the  necessity  of  protecting  the  laborer 
under  the  peculiar  circumstances  in  which  he  is  placed  by  the 
war ;  but  here  the  rate  is  much  nearer  to  the  standard  of  the 
public  market. 

According  to  Mr.  Mellen’s  plan,  all  sound  persons  between 
the  ages  of  20  and  40  are  No.  1  hands.  Between  15  and  19  and 
between  40  and  50  years,  No.  2  hands.  Between  12  and  14  and 
over  50,  No.  3  hands. 

The  wages  for  males,  No.  1  hands,  are  $25  per  month ;  No.  2, 
$20,  and  No.  3,  $15.  For  females  the  wages  are  for  the  several 
grades  respectively,  $18,  $14,  and  $10. 

Persons  suffering  from  any  physical  defect  or  infirmity  con¬ 
stitute  a  fourth  class,  and  are  paid  accordingly.  In  Mr.  Mellen’s 
system  the  employers  are  obliged  to  keep  on  hand  a  sufficient 
supply  of  proper  clothing,  and  to  sell  the  same  to  the  employed 
at  wholesale  cost  price  and  ten  per  cent,  advance. 

The  rate  of  wages  of  the  several  grades  of  laborers,  as  fixed  in 
the  Department  of  the  Gulf,  is  eight,  six,  five,  and  three  dollars 
a  month,  with  clothing,  or  three  dollars  per  month  commutation 
for  clothing.  In  this  Department  also,  the  laborer  having  once 
selected  his  employer  is  compelled  to  remain  with  him  for  a  year. 
While  under  any  system  that  may  be  adopted  it  is  doubtless 


28 


of  the  greatest  importance  that  the  colored  laborer  should  be 
made  to  understand  the  nature  and  obligations  of  a  contract,  and 
should  be  held  to  the  just  fulfillment  of  such  as  lie  may  volun¬ 
tarily  enter  into,  this  form  of  enforcing  the  obligation  is 
deemed  wrong  in  principle  and  liable  to  serious  abuses,  and 
only  to  be  tolerated  as  a  temporary  necessity. 

The  system  of  Gen.  Banks  provides  also  tor  the  education  of 
the  colored  children  on  the  plantations,  and  for  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  free  labor  savings  institutions,  both  of  which  meet  the 
entire  approval  of  the  Commission. 

I  do  not  deem  it  necessary  here  to  enter  farther  into  the  de- 
tails  of  these  several  systems.  The  proclamation  and  the  orders 
under  which  they  are  established,  are  undoubtedly  of  record  in 
the  War  and  Treasury  departments.  Nor  do  I  desire  to  criticise 
too  closely  plans  adopted,  doubtless  with  the  best  intentions,  to 
meet  the  urgent  necessities  which  presented  themselves  in  the 
confusion  and  chaos  consequent  upon  the  breaking  up  of  the  old 
systems,  in  the  midst  of  a  great  war.  Neither,  however,  seems 
to  me  sufficiently  to  recognize  the  freedman's  right  to  intervene 
in  his  own  affairs,  or  to  contemplate  sufficiently  the  great  end 
of  educating  him  to  self  control,  self  reliance,  and  to  the  exercise 
of  the  rights  and  duties  of  civilized  life. 

This  must,  of  course,  be  a  work  of  time.  But  unless  a  system 
be  speedily  adopted  which  shall  embrace  these  as  its  fundamen¬ 
tal  and  primary  objects,  the  practical  freedom  and  future  well¬ 
being  of  the  emancipated  population,  no  less  than  the  great  in 
dustrial  interests  dependent  upon  their  voluntary,  enlightened, 
and  justly  compensated  labor,  will  be  seriously,  if  not  fatally 
jeopardied. 

But,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Commission,  the  most  serious 
error  in  connection  with  the  present  arrangements  for  the  care 
and  protection  of  these  people  arises  out  of  the  assignment  to  a 
different  agency  of  the  care  and  disposal  of  the  abandoned 
plantations.  To  enter  into  the  detail  of  all  the  evils  and  abuses 
that  have  arisen  out  of  this  error,  and  which  are  unavoidable,  so 
long  as  it  continues  to  exist,  would  occupy  too  great  a  space  in 
this  report.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  is  the  source  of  the  greatest 
confusion  and  a  perpetual  collision  between  the  different  local 
authorities,  in  which  not  only  the  emancipated  population  but 


29 


the  Government  itself,  suffers  the  most  serious  injuries  and 
losses. 

Gen.  Banks,  in  the  letter  hereinbefore  so  often  quoted,  says  : 
“  The  assignment  of  the  abandoned  or  forfeited  plantations  to 
one  department  of  the  Government,  aud  the  protection  and  sup- 
port  of  the  emancipated  people  to  another,  is  a  fundamental 
error  productive  of  incalculable  evils,  and  cannot  be  too  soon  or 
too  thoroughly  corrected.” 

And  this  is  the  purport  of  all  the  testimony  which  the  Com¬ 
mission  has  been  able  to  obtain,  not  in  the  Department  of  the 
Gulf  only,  but  everywhere,  in  relation  to  this  matter. 

The  unhesitating  judgment  of  every  person,  official  or  other, 
not  interested  in  the  opportunities  it  affords  for  peculation, 
with  whom  we  have  consulted,  coincides  with  that  of  Gen. 
Banks.  All,  without  exception,  declare  that  no  system  can 
avail  to  effect  the  great  objects  contemplated,  that  does  not  as¬ 
sign  to  one  and  the  same  authority,  the  care  and  disposal  of  the 
abandoned  plantations,  and  the  care  and  protection  of  the  eman¬ 
cipated  laborers  who  are  to  cultivate  them. 

And,  after  the  most  thorough  investigations,  I  am  authorized 
in  saying  that  this  is  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the  Com  mis 
sion. 

If,  in  the  preceding  cursory  survey  of  the  present  state  of 
things  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  I  have  succeeded  in  pre¬ 
senting  the  two  constituent  elements  of  the  old  slave  societv  in 
their  true  light,  it  cannot  fail  to  suggest  the  intrinsic  nature  of 
the  antagonisms  that  stand  in  the  way  of  the  successful  intro¬ 
duction  of  the  free  labor  system  there,  and  of  the  political  recon¬ 
struction  based  upon  it.  Fvery  analysis  of  slave  society  every¬ 
where  brings  us  to  a  like  conclusion.  The  difficulty  is  not  with 
the  emancipated  slave ;  but  with  the  old  master,  still  enthralled 
by  his  old  infatuation. 

I  am  aware  that  this  master  class  has  been  hitherto  generally 
represented  as  a  body  of  men  remarkable  for  their  proficiency  in 
statesmanship,  politics,  and  deportment.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
now  to  controvert  this  view  of  them,  any  further  than  to  say, 
that  there  is  another  quite  as  intrinsic  and  much  more  impor¬ 
tant  to  be  well  understood. 

Aunt  Phillis,  the  old  slave  cook  of  the  highly  respectable  and 


30 


thrifty  St.  Helena  cotton  planter,  Mr.  John  Pope,  in  the  midst 
of  the  story  of  her  long  experience  of  the  cruelties  and  sufferings 
of  plantation  life,  upon  the  very  ground  where  she  then  stood 
free  at  last,  stopped,  as  if  some  new  light  had  burst  upon  her 
weary  and  bewildered  soul,  and  looking  up  said  :  “  Trute  is, 
Massa,  Massa  Pope  touglit  God  was  dead.”  That  was  her  ac¬ 
count  of  them,  her  explanation  of  the  phenomena  she  had  been 
witness  to  in  the  secret  recesses  of  that  social  order  of  which  they 
were  the  founders  and  chiefs.  And  by  no  means  a  very  irra¬ 
tional  one,  for  certainly,  to  men  who  had  come  to  ignore  so 
utterly,  the  existence  of  God’s  image  under  the  black  skin,  so 
often  lacerated  by  the  blows  of  their  many  thonged  whip  of 
dried  bull’s  hide,  such  a  thought  was  not  at  all  unlikely. 

However  this  may  be,  wliat  is  certain  is  that  these  masters, 
isolating  themselves,  in  their  fierce  pride,  from  the  great  move¬ 
ments  of  the  free,  democratic  society  and  civilization  of  their 
country  and  age,  had  come  to  entertain  some  very  strange  and 
erroneous  beliefs,  as  well  with  regard  to  themselves  as  with  re¬ 
gard  to  the  world  around  them.  With  their  hearts  filled  with 
the  indisputable  ownership  of  broad  domains  and  toiling  slaves, 
is  it  strange  that  the  fumes  of  unrestrained  and  illicit  power  and 
dominion,  should  have  mounted  into  their  heads  and  perverted, 
not  their  own  self-consciousness  only,  but  their  whole  sense  of 
truth  and  of  the  quality  of  actions  and  of  things,  even  to  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  believing  their  monstrous  system  of  organized  barbarism, 
the  supremest  and  most  excellent  product  of  the  ages,  and  its 
maintenance  the  one  paramount  concern  of  the  world?  What 
to  them  was  the  value  of  constitution,  government,  or  country, 
compared  with  the  interests  of  their  God-ordained  slave  com¬ 
monwealth  and  mastership  ? 

Seldom  has  the  ethical  providence  of  the  world  had  to  deal 
with  so  profound  a  blindness  and  degeneration.  It  is  only  to  be 
paralleled  by  that  of  an  order  of  men  whose  regime  was  extin¬ 
guished  in  its  own  blood  at  the  end  of  the  last  century  in  France. 
Apparently  that  ancient  “  noblesse  ”  was  as  besotted  with  pride 
and  disdain  as  even  this  new  order  of  the  slave-whip.  They 
seem  to  have  entertained  as  supreme  a  contempt  for  the  poor, 
white-skinned  drudges,  upon  whose  spoilated  labor  they  had 
lived  and  prospered  and  revelled  for  a  thousand  years,  as  any 


31 


master  for  his  black-skinned  chattels.  It  is  related  that  one  of 
them,  a  certain  Count  de  Cliarolais,  whom  Dulaure  calls  the 
finest  specimen  of  a  feudal  lord  of  his  time,  used  sometimes  to 
amuse  his  leisure  by  shooting  at  the  tilers  on  the  roofs  of  the 
neighboring  houses ;  and  when  one  of  them  rolled  down, 
wounded  or  dead,  it  was  an  occasion  of  great  merriment  to  him 
and  his  companions.  Doubtless,  that  to  him  was  as  enjoyable  a 
feat,  as  the  blows  of  the  coach-trace  whip  upon  the  bare  back  of 
a  prostrate,  pregnant  woman  to  that  South  Carolina  master, 
Fararby,  whose  exploit  is  mentioned  in  the  main  Report  of  the 
Commission. 

And  yet  it  would  seem  that  even  these  people  had  not  got  to 
quite  the  depth  of  Aunt  Phillis’s  master.  They  did  not  “  believe 
that  God  was  dead.’1  The  faith  they  had  come  to  entertain  and 

t j 

profess  was  only  that,  so  confidently  announced  by  a  lady  of  the 
Court  of  Louis  15tli.  Speaking  of  some  de  Cliarolais  who  had 
just  been  called  to  his  final  account,  she  said,  “Depend  upon  it, 
sir,  God  will  think  twice  before  damning  a  man  of  that  quality.” 
It  took  the  Reign  of  Terror  and  the  Guillotine  to  cure  that 
ancient  noblesse  of  their  delusions. 

The  culmination  of  the  masters’  infatuation  in  their  present 
atrocious  war  would  seem  to  indicate  a  somewhat  similar  kind 
of  Providential  surgery,  to  have  been  necessary  for  them. 

However  this  may  be,  had  not  their  infatuation  and  blindness 
infected  and  demoralized  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  whole  people 
of  the  LTiited  States  and  of  their  public  servants,  the  intrinsic 
nature  of  their  mastership,  and  the  utter  incompatibility  of  its 
existence,  with  that  of  our  free  democratic  institutions  and 
civilization,  would  long  ago  have  been  recognized  and  acted 
upon  frankly,  and  without  equivocations  or  reservations. 

Every  diagnosis  of  the  malady  under  which  the  body  politic 
is  writhing  and  staggering  in  the  present  hour,  discloses  its 
nucleus  in  the  old  mastership.  That  in  this  mastership  is  the 
seat  of  the  disease,  containing  the  pestiferous  virus  by  which  the 
whole  nation  has  been  infected*  That  this  seed  of  national  dis¬ 
honor,  dissolution,  and  death,  was  brought  from  Africa,  and 
landed  upon  the  banks  of  the  James  River,  Virginia,  in  the 
autumn  of  that  same  year  (1020)  in  which  the  Pilgrims,  with 
the  germs  of  our  national  life,  civilization,  and  glory,  landed 


32 


upon  Plymouth  Pock.  That  this  fatal  virus  has  spread  and  in¬ 
creased  in  virulence  for  more  than  two  hundred  years,  until  the 
glow  of  the  fever  had  come  to  he  mistaken  for  the  bloom  of 
health  ;  until  the  summits  of  the  mountainous  social  carbuncle 
generated  by  it,  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  heights  of 
national  culture,  wealth,  and  glory.  Let  us  thank  God  that  it 
has  burst  at  last,  and  opened  up  to  the  eyes  of  all  men  its 
loathsome  depths,  so  that  the  merest  tyro  in  the  science  of 
social  and  political  health  and  statesmanship,  need  no  longer  be 
mistaken  as  to  its  nature,  or  as  to  the  treatment  proper  for  its 
cure. 

Let  us  indeed  thank  God,  that  under  the  operation  of  his  own 
infinitely  just  and  inexorable  laws,  the  white  man’s  great  enter¬ 
prise  of  nearly  four  hundred  years’  duration,  to  rob  the  negro 
race  of  its  labor  and  enrich  himself  with  it,  approaches  its  final 
termination. 

A  more  stupendous  scheme  of  human  selfishness  and  wrong 
was  never  projected  or  prosecuted  on  earth.  Taking  it  from  its 
beginnings,  in  the  slave-hunts  in  Africa,  in  which  it  is  said  two 
human  beings,  on  an  average,  were  destroyed  for  every  one 
taken — through  the  nameless  atrocities  of  the  middle  passage,  in 
the  course  of  which  it  is  estimated  that  more  than  two  millions 
of  human  bodies,  dead  and  alive,  were  cast  into  the  sea,  to  its 
final  consummation  on  this  continent,  in  a  gigantic  system  of 
organized  inhumanity  and  barbarism,  it  involved  the  commission 
of  every  crime  known  to  civilized  nations. 

It  could  not  be  otherwise ;  the  very  nature  of  the  enterprise 
made  the  commission  of  all  crimes  a  necessary  incident,  to  its 
successful  prosecution.  Viewed  then,  simply,  in  the  light  of  its 
own  legitimate  operations,  the  slave  system  may  well  be  defined 
“  the  sum  of  all  villainies.”  Viewed  in  the  light  of  its  own  essen¬ 
tial  idea,  of  its  own  intrinsic  nature,  it  involves  a  still  profounder 
guilt ;  for  it  not  only  contemplated  the  overthrow  in  morals  and 
legislation,  of  the  distinction  fundamental  to  all  human  civiliza¬ 
tion,  between  person  and  property,  but  the  extinction  in  a  whole 
race  of  men,  of  that  divine  spark  which  constitutes  the  manhood, 
and  gives  to  that  distinction  its  validity.  Thus,  in  import  and 
intention  it  outreached  all  secular  crime,  to  sap  the  innermost 
foundations  of  the  immortal  life. 


33 


Only  in  the  terrible  glare  cast  upon  it  by  the  present  war  did 
the  true  nature  of  the  mastership,  and  the  order  of  slavery  found¬ 
ed  upon  it,  begin  to  reveal  itself  to  the  popular  understanding. 
We  may  well  believe  that  when  the  great  revolution  now  tran¬ 
spiring  shall  have  swept  out  of  existence  all  its  interests  and  pas¬ 
sions,  all  the  blindness  and  infatuation  engendered  by  it,  it  will 
be  difficult  for  the  future  historian  to  realize  or  recall  that  state 
of  the  public  conscience  in  which  its  enormities  were  not  only 
deemed  innocent,  but  here  in  the  United  States,  were  accepted 
as  an  essential,  component  part  of  a  great  System  of  Democratic 
Liberty  and  Christian  civilization. 

We  still  stand  in  the  midst  of  that  revolution.  Its  great  work, 
the  regeneration  of  the  reason  and  conscience  of  the  nation 
and  of  its  public  servants,  has  yet  by  no  means  been  fully 
accomplished.  By  a  great  law  of  the  ethical  Providence,  the 
struggle  must  continue  until  both  are  cleansed  of  the  moral  and 
political  pollutions  and  lies,  that  slavery  has  engendered  there, 
and  the  people  and  their  rulers,  accept  with  all  their  hearts  and 
in  their  true  and  broadest  meaning  “  the  self  evident  truths  ”  of 
the  great  declaration :  “  that  all  men  are  created  equal,  that  they 
are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights; 
that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.” 
For,  let  us  rest  assured,  that  in  these  truths  are  contained  the 
germs,  the  vital  forces  of  whatever  national  prosperity,  civiliza¬ 
tion,  and  history  is  possible  to  us  as  a  people. 

In  all  manner  of  official  proclamations  and  manifestoes,  it  has 
been  repeatedly  declared  that  the  war  on  our  part  was  waged 
alone  for  the  preservation  of  the  constitution  and  the  reestablish¬ 
ment  of  the  Union.  But  what  would  be  the  value  of  the  letter 
of  the  constitution  unless  quickened  by  the  spirit  of  these  “  self- 
evident  truths.”  And  what  would  the  Union  be,  without  the 
inherent  principle  of  cohesion,  the  living  unity  founded  in  these 
truths  ? 

Reunion  then,  and  the  preservation  of  the  essential  life  of  the 
constitution,  demand,  not  only  the  release  of  the  slave  popula¬ 
tion  from  their  bonds  and  the  degradation  thereby  imposed  upon 
them  ;  but  the  deliverance  of  the  master  population  also,  wholly 
and  forever,  from  their  mastership,  and  from  the  fatal  delusions 
and  depravations  that  are  inherent  in  it.  This  is  the  primary 
5 


34 


necessity  of  any  rational  attempt  to  establish  free  labor  and  a 
better  social  order  in  the  Slave  States,  the  very  first  step  towards 
any  wise,  or  well-founded  reconstruction ;  for  in  no  other  way  can 
the  rebel  States  ever  be  rehabilitated  with  a  truly  loyal,  demo¬ 
cratic,  concurrent  citizenship. 

And  this  brings  me  to  speak  of  the  means  which,  in  the  judg~ 
ment  of  the  Commission  are  deemed  necessary  to  give  practical 
effect  to  the  acts  of  Congress  and  the  President’s  Proclamation 
of  January,  1863,  “  to  the  end  that  the  colored  population  there¬ 
by  emancipated  may  defend  and  support  themselves.”  Their 
recommendations  embrace  three  principal  measures,  which  with 
more  or  less  completeness  have  been  heretofore,  in  their  several 
preliminary  reports  and  are  herewith,  in  their  final  report,  sub¬ 
mitted  to  the  War  Department. 

The  object  of  the  first  of  these  measures  is  to  secure  beyond 
any  possible  peradventure  or  doubt,  the  civil  right  of  the  colored 
man  to  personal  freedom,  by  placing  that  right,  in  the  new  order 
of  thing,  on  the  same  broad  basis  as  that  of  the  white  man. 

In  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  in  the  Bills  of 
Right,  contained  in  nearly  all  of  the  Constitutions  of  the  States, 
even  in  those  of  the  Slave  States,  this  right  of  Personal  Liberty, 
with  others,  considered  as  personal  endowments  of  the  Creator, 
attributes  of  the  human  nature— are  expressly  reserved  as  above 
all  governmental  interference,  as  too  sacred  to  be  meddled  with 
by  human  legislatures.  And  this  doctrine  is  the  keystone  of 
our  whole  system  of  Free  Democratic  Institutions.  These 
rights  are  as  sacred  in  the  person  of  the  colored  man  as  of  the 
white  man  ;  and  upon  every  consideration  of  justice  to  him,  as 
of  safety  to  the  commonweal  and  honor  of  the  nation,  ought  to 
be  as  securely  guarantied,  as  sacredly  guarded. 

This  is  to  be  effected  most  surely  by  an  amendment  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  That  measure  is  already  be¬ 
fore  Congress,  and  although  not  exactly  in  the  form  recom¬ 
mended  by  the  Commission,  yet  it  is  believed  sufficient,  especially 
if  accompanied  with  other  legislation  in  the  same  spirit  and  with 
a  like  intent,  to  accomplish  the  great  object  proposed,  and  every 
true  lover  of  his  country’s  permanent  peace,  prosperity,  and  honor, 
cannot  but  await  with  the  greatest  anxiety  its  final  consumma¬ 
tion. 


35 


The  second  is  a  nieasure  of  scarcely  less  importance,  and  con¬ 
sidering  the  exigencies  of  the  approaching  crisis  and  the  present 
temper  and  disposition  of  the  master  class,  even  more  immedi¬ 
ately  urgent  than  the  first. 

Whenever  civil  authority  shall  he  re-established  in  the  rebel 
States,  and  they  shall  be  re-admitted  to  the  Federal  Union,  the 
greater  portion  of  the  civil  and  political  rights  of  their  inhabi¬ 
tants,  necessarily  fall  under  the  jurisdiction  and  control  of  State 
authority.  In  all  these  States  the  colored  people,  even  such  of 
them  as  have  been  always  free,  have  been  uniformly  debarred 
the  enjoyment  of  all  political  and  many  civil  rights.  Unless, 
therefore,  the  emancipated  population  have  secured  to  them  their 
civil  and  political  rights  by  national  authority,  antecedent  to 
such  re-admission,  they  will  stand  in  imminent  danger  of  being 
defrauded  of  any  practical  freedom,  notwithstanding  “  the  acts  of 
Congress  and  the  President’s  Proclamation.” 

In  the  language  of  a  witness  whose  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  spirit  of  the  master-class,  gives  great  weight  to  his  words : 
“  They  had  much  better  be  slaves  with  the  present  feelings  of 
the  Southern  whites  against  them,  than  to  be  left  without  national 
guarantees  for  the  maintenance  of  their  rights  as  freemen.” 

It  is  the  producing  class — that  class  whose  whole  life  is  de¬ 
voted  to  toil — that  under  every  form  of  civil  government  is  most 
in  danger  of  being  made  the  victim  of  the  leisure,  capital,  and 
opportunities  of  the  non-producing  class.  Under  the  most  fa¬ 
vorable  circumstances,  therefore,  it  is  this  class  that  most  needs 
and  deserves  to  be  fenced  about  with  civil  and  political  guar¬ 
antees.  But  the  circumstances  and  position  of  the  emancipated 
population  are  most  unfavorable  and  critical.  Without  their 
own  volition,  without  previous  preparation,  and  as  a  measure 
of  national  self-preservation,  they  have  been  suddenly  precipi¬ 
tated  into  new  and  wholly  untried  relations  with  an  antagonistic, 
far  more  able  and  adroit  class.  To  leave  them  in  this  position, 
defenceless  and  at  the  mercy  of  their  old  masters,  would  in  its 
cruelest  meaning  be  to  keep  with  them  “  the  word  of  promise  to 
the  ear  and  break  it  to  the  hope.” 

Nay,  not  only  the  national  honor,  but  future  national  peace 
and  well  being  demand  that  the  National  Government  should 
secure  to  these  people  now,  while  they  are  still  under  the  sole 


36 


jurisdiction  and  control  of  that  government,  the  permanent  pos¬ 
session  of  such  civil  and  political  rights  as  will  enable  them  “  to 
defend  and  support  themselves,”  against  the  machinations  and 
schemes  of  any  class  or  power  to  subject  them  again  to  any 
form  of  slavery  or  serfdom. 

To  this  end,  I  cannot  too  earnestly  urge  that  Congress  he  in¬ 
voked  to  fix  and  establish  by  law  antecedent  to,  and  as  a  condi¬ 
tion  precedent  to  reconstruction,  the  civil  rights  of  the  emanci¬ 
pated  population  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  provide  for  the 
future  enjoyment  by  all  free  persons  of  color  of  the  fundamen¬ 
tal  right  of  citizenship  in  a  free  government,  the  right  to  the 
elective  franchise,  based  upon  the  acquisition  on  their  part,  of 
such  qualifications  only,  as  are  deemed  essential  in  their  white 
fellow-citizens. 

Another  matter  intimately  connected  with  the  foregoing,  and 
as  I  believe,  profoundly  involving  the  existence  and  future  pros¬ 
perity  of  free  society  in  the  Southern  States,  is  the  disposition  to 
be  made  of  the  confiscated  estates,  or  other  forfeited  lands  in  these 
States.  Iso  such  thing  as  free,  democratic  society  can  exist  in 
any  country  where  all  the  lands  are  owned  by  one  class  of  men 
and  are  cultivated  by  another.  Such  ownership  of  the  lands  of 
a  country  constitutes  the  basis  of  the  most  permanent  and  op¬ 
pressive  aristocracies.  Upon  this  foundation  stood,  for  a  thousand 
years,  the  feudal  aristocracy  of  France.  And,  to-day,  the  aris¬ 
tocracy  of  England  maintain  their  supremacy  upon  the  basis  of 
the  partition  and  tenure  of  the  soil  of  England,  robbed  by  Wil¬ 
liam  the  Conqueror  from  the  original  owners,  the  people  of  Eng¬ 
land,  and  granted  in  large  estates  to  his  captains. 

So  incompatible  has  that  tenure  become  with  modern  civiliza¬ 
tion  and  the  well-being  of  society  in  that  country,  that  the 
wisest  statesmen  there  are  beginning  to  apprehend  the  most 
fearful  consequences  from  its  continued  existence. 

In  the  sugar  and  cotton  producing  portions  of  the  South, 
almost  all  the  cultivated  soil  has  been  hitherto  held  in  large 
tracts  by  the  master-class. 

I  need  not  stop  to  argue  the  utter  incompatibility  of  such  a 
state  of  things  with  the  existence  of  a  free,  independent,  demo¬ 
cratic  yeomanry,  or  with  the  development  of  free  democratic  in¬ 
stitutions.  The  poor  whites  of  the  South  are  a  sufficient  illus- 


37 


tration  of  its  pernicious  influence  and  effect  upon  a  whole  com¬ 
munity,  of  the  same  race  with  the  landholders. 

If  not  for  the  sake  of  the  emancipated  colored  people,  then  for 
the  sake  of  these  poor  whites,  these  most  pitiable  men  of  our  own 
race,  this  whole  scheme  and  tenure  of  the  mastership  should  be 
overthrown.  The  great  necessity,  as  I  have  before  intimated 
from  another  point  of  view,  which  at  the  present  hour  lies  upon 
the  people  and  Government  of  the  United  States,  is  not  so  much 
a  political  as  a  social  reconstruction  of  the  Southern  States.  Any 
well  founded  plan  for  the  former,  to  be  effectual  and  permanent, 
must  include  the  latter ;  and  for  the  latter,  the  initiation  of  a 
policy  on  the  part  of  the  National  Government,  which  shall 
have  for  its  aim  the  ultimate  division  of  the  great  plantations, 
into  moderate  sized  farms,  to  be  held  and  cultivated  by  the  labor 
of  their  owners,  is  of  the  utmost  importance. 

I  am  aware  that  an  opinion  has  been  hitherto  generally  en¬ 
tertained  that  sugar  and  cotton  cultivation,  could  only  be  profi¬ 
tably  carried  on  upon  large  estates,  and  by  the  employment  of 
large  gangs  of  laborers,  principally  because  a  large  capital  is  ne¬ 
cessary  to  the  erection  of  the  sugar  mills,  cotton  gins,  and  other 
machinery  connected  with  the  production  of  these  commodities. 
All  the  investigations  of  the  Commission  go  to  show,  that  this 
opinion  is  but  a  part  of  the  system  of  slavery,  and  has  no  foun¬ 
dation  in  the  necessities  of  the  case.  There  is,  in  reality,  no 
more  reason  why  the  sugar  cane  should  be  raised  and  converted 
into  sugar  by  the  planter  alone,  than  there  is  that  wheat  should 
be  converted  into  flour,  only  by  the  farmer  who  raises  it.  And 
so  with  the  raising,  ginning,  and  baling  of  cotton.  On  the  con¬ 
trary,  a  proper  division  of  labor  in  the  raising  and  manufacture 
of  sugar  and  cotton,  would  almost  inevitably  lead  to  a  great  de¬ 
velopment  in  their  production ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it 
would  tend  not  only  to  mitigate  the  labor,  but  to  secure  the  in¬ 
dustrial  prosperity  and  independence  of  all  those  employed  in 
that  production,  and  thus  constitute  an  entirely  different  order 
of  social  relation  and  condition  in  these  States.  I  consider  this 
a  matter  next  in  importance  to  the  permanent  security  of  the 
civil  and  political  rights  of  the  emancipated  population,  and  beg 
leave  to  recommend  it  to  the  earnest  attention  of  the  national 
authorities. 


38 


And,  finally,  permit  me  once  more  to  call  the  attention  of 
Government  to  the  third  of  the  measures  proposed  by  the  Com¬ 
mission — the  establishment  of  some  uniform  system  of  super¬ 
vision  and  guardianship  for  the  emancipated  population  in  the 
interim  of  their  transition  from  slavery  to  freedom,  So  one 
acquainted  with  the  facts  conld  hesitate  a  moment  as  to  the 
necessity  and  propriety  of  such  a  system  ;  not  only  for  the  sake 
of  the  emancipated,  but  for  the  general  interest  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment  and  country. 

In  the  letter  so  frequently  hereinbefore  mentioned,  General 
Banks  most  forcibly  says  :  “  It  is  undoubtedly  true,  as  you  say, 
that  for  some  time  to  come,  and  until  the  new  order  of  things 
shall  be  better  understood  by  the  employer  and  the  employed, 
and  the  free-labor  system  be  more  completely  established,  there 
will  be  a  necessity  for  some  kind  of  Government  supervision  and 
protectorate  for  the  benefit  of  both  parties.'5 

“  But  this  is  not  specially  incident  to  the  new  system  of  negro 
labor.  It  is  only  by  Governmental  supervision  and  assistance  that 
the  labor  of  any  race  has  been  fostered  and  established.  It  is  of 
course  as  necessary  for  the  blacks  as  for  the  whites,  and  if  you 
look  at  the  stipulations  which  the  blacks  in  this  department  have 
themselves  suggested,  as  the  condition  of  their  service,  you  will 
find  that  their  ideas  embody  in  substance  and  in  character,  the 
spirit  of  all  statute  legislation  for  the  protection  of  white  labor.” 

“  It  is  no  more  incident  to  the  condition  of  the  blacks  than  of 
any  other  class  of  people,  except  that  they  enter  the  arena  of 
civilization  at  a  later  period  and  the  difficulties  of  their  position 
are  presented  at  a  glance  and  a  remedy  instantly  demanded.” 

All  of  which  is  respectfully  submitted. 

J.  McKAYE, 

Special  Commissioner . 


